Dalmore Rivers Collection: The Tay Dram

It’s not often you get charity whisky. And you wouldn’t necessarily associate your favourite dram with an ecological cause. But Dalmore have launched a series of whiskies specifically to raise money to protect Scotland’s rivers.

It’s not the first time they’ve done this – the Dalmore Dee Dram was launched last year and sold out in nine weeks, raising £35,000 to enhance this iconic fishing spot. Yes, it’s about tourism, but it’s also about sustainability and conservation.

There are four river projects in this new set: Dee, Tay, Tweed and Spey (from which we get the term ‘Speyside’, with which you’ll be familiar as a whisky region). They’re hoping to raise around £400,000 a year through the sale of these whiskies to help protect salmon, otters, rare birds and other plants and animals. But what do they taste like (the whiskies that is, not the rivers – or the otters)?

I thought I’d try one a night over the next few evenings… starting with the Tay.

Dalmore Tay Dram
The Dalmore Tay Dram is 40% abv, and retails for around the £40 mark – 10% of which goes directly to the Tay Foundation to enable them to continue their work to protect and enhance the river Tay. It’s a limited bottling consisting of whisky finished in bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks. And it’s very nice indeed.